Sepp van den Berg came very close to joining Blackburn Rovers – and breaking Preston North End hearts in the process.
North End fans fell in love with Van den Berg during a superb 18-month loan spell with the club.
Van den Berg arrived on loan from Liverpool back in February 2021 as part of the deal that sent Ben Davies to Anfield.
Few were really expecting Van den Berg to become such a fan favourite at Deepdale but that’s what happened.
The Dutchman put in a great shift as a right wing back for North End, performing admirably in an unfamiliar position.
Van den Berg then excelled as a right-sided centre back in Ryan Lowe’s 3-5-2, looking like an absolute natural thanks to his pace and ability on the ball.
Sadly, Van den Berg’s time at Preston came to an end this summer and Liverpool wanted to send him on loan elsewhere.
Bundesliga side Schalke ended up signing Van den Berg but Preston fans were almost given a nightmare scenario.
Blackburn Rovers wanted to sign Van den Berg and their strong connections to Liverpool meant a deal was a real possibility.
This left Preston fans baffled; Van den Berg had been superb in the Championship for 18 months so why send him back there?
Thankfully, we never had to put up with seeing Van den Berg in a Blackburn shirt with Schalke winning the race.
Blackburn director of football Gregg Broughton has now told the club’s official website that Van den Berg actually completed his medical, interviews and photographs to complete his move to Ewood Park.
However, Liverpool’s defensive injury problems stalled the deal and that allowed Schalke to swoop in, ruling out a Lancashire return for Van den Berg – and allowing Preston fans to breathe a sigh of relief.
“We had the moving pieces with Sepp van den Berg and I think it was open knowledge that he was here, he did his medical, he did his interviews and photographs with the media team,” said Broughton.
“There was then an injury crisis at Liverpool, they weren’t prepared to sign that off despite the fact everything was done at our end. As that came towards the end, Liverpool won 9-0 at home and we got the call to say that the deal could happen quite quickly.”
“However, Schalke made a player sale to AC Milan overnight and things moved again. We weren’t prepared to wait for Sepp to make his mind up and we had to move quickly to bring both Dom and Clinton in after that,” he added.